


The Children's Rose

by rainer76



Category: Fringe
Genre: Gen, original prompt: "I'm so sorry my dear." Red Elizabeth meets blue Walter, written for the kink-meme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-12
Updated: 2011-07-12
Packaged: 2017-10-21 07:14:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/222355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainer76/pseuds/rainer76
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(AU) Red Elizabeth meets blue Walter</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Children's Rose

The garden is a riot of colour, fragrance carried on the breeze, Papa Meilland mixing with Yesteryear, the combined colours of Joyfulness entwined beside Children’s Rose; Elizabeth spends long hours on the grounds, pruning back cutlets that have grown in, nurturing off-shoots, her back bowed, knees filmed with grime. The leaves of each branch are delicate, rough against her pads, hunter green with no sign of Blight or ailment, the garden-beds run the length of the property, the emerging buds a constellation, a bright solar system of clashing light. The hat she wears is wide-brim, shading Elizabeth’s head, her hair twisted back in a loose braid, white cotton shirt over-sized on her frame. Elizabeth can see Darren and Case, two sentinels who patrol the property like Dobermans. The house is Elizabeth’s - Walter hasn’t lived here in almost fourteen years - the presence of the Secret Service token at best. She lays the secateurs aside, drops her hat on the churned up earth and walks inside with her flowers bundled close, the sudden darkness of indoors leaves her cool, sweat drying on her forehead like a cold compress. Elizabeth pulls the fridge door open, knocks aside the leftovers from the previous night’s casserole and locates the pitcher of water.

“Hullo, dear.”

Walter always had an unusual accent, strident, roaming the continents, never alighting on a single destination. Elizabeth feels her hand tremor and pulls the pitcher forth, turning around in the small island of her kitchen. She couldn’t tell them apart twenty-five years ago, they had the same fire, as if Hades itself were lashing at their skin, full of urgency and drive. Elizabeth couldn’t tell them apart despite the fact _he _wore tweed, a cut and style of clothing decades out of fashion, she couldn’t tell them apart even though he wouldn’t look Elizabeth in the eye, not once as he cradled their son close. They were all so desperate back then, ran ragged with mounting grief. Here and now, Elizabeth has no such difficulty. Walter is wearing a sweater that has seen better years, his face a demarcation line between age and guilt; he wrings his hands together in an expressive act her ex-husband would _never _do. Elizabeth feels her heart stop, stutter, re-drive. “Elizabeth.” Walter says, the name torn from his throat, over-ripe and bleeding, shredded on garden thorns. “Oh god, my sweet.”____

He hasn’t invoked her name in years. Walter doesn’t look at Elizabeth with tenderness or covet her body. Elizabeth can remember the days when they travelled the world together, his voice a barometer of rising enthusiasm - since her child was stolen, it’s nothing but unspoken blame, hate escalating with each passing year - he finds solace with priced women now, with whores who tell Walter exactly what he wants to hear. Her ex-husband still carries the same drive that existed twenty-five years ago, whereas the man standing before her is hulled. Elizabeth stares at him until action drives her feet forward; the slap sharp, open palmed, ringing in the darkened house. She can see the white impact of her own handprint.

Walter sways under the blow, tears knocked loose from his eyes. He captures both hands before she can strike him again. “I’m sorry,” he says, “oh god, Elizabeth, I’m so sorry…” She’s dead in the world he inhabits, Elizabeth knows; in this reality, they’re divorced. Elizabeth was the last person to see their son alive, the last witness, and without evidence of alternate realities to excuse Peter's disappearance, Elizabeth became the prime suspect in the public domain. Walter divorced her the moment he set his heart on politics.

He’s crying, holding Elizabeth close, head buried in her hair, the litany of his apology on endless loop, Elizabeth wants to know whom Walter’s addressing - the phantom wife who took her own life, or the woman he stole a child from, a promise he never kept – she wants to know why he’s here, except Elizabeth has the answer to the question already. He’s here because Peter is. Elizabeth’s hands claw into his back. “I’m sorry,” he says again. The smell of Walter, the scent of Fredric Mistral discarded on the table-bench, combined with Yesteryear and Papa Meilland, is almost overwhelming.


End file.
